A Key To the Mind
by Christmas Spirit of the Brook
Summary: Given the responsibility of holding all memories, what do you do immediately? You explore these memories. You test your limits. Can you die in a memory and then come back alive as the memory-keeper? That is up to you entirely. Danger, heartache, lust, grief, joy, and adventures await, young sailor. Welcome aboard. Rated T for violence and minor swearing.
1. Prologue: Tata!

_Welcome to the world. Welcome to a world where the desperate traveler's thirst for knowledge can be quenched by a single story. One story can tell you so much about this world. But you might have to wander into different minds to see the world clearly. Here, I give you the gift of seeing. I am no longer in need of it. Farewell, young one. Be prepared. They might overwhelm you at first, but just give them time. They will come, according to your own mood. Now, the question is, is that bad? No wonder philosophers have such a bad end in this world. My brain hurts just by trying to question that simple thing. I will leave now. Be careful. Be prepared. What to be prepared for? Pain, anticipation, wonder, joy, love, grief beyond compare, but most of all, pain. I see that little glint in your eyes. You're a sadist. Tut, tut, you will not be seeing pain. You will be living pain. Living and seeing are two different things. Farewell. Stay well. If you need me, just keep your mind clear of emotions. Oh, wait, that's impossible, being a memory-keeper and a feeling, emotional being. Oh, well, just see if I come when you call! Ta-ta!_

You look at your paws, unsure of yourself. You weren't given an oath to follow or anything. But it is still a big responsibility, shouldering all the memories in the world, after all.

 ****

 **A/N: And someone emerges from the darkness. It's Brookunichi who has legit not been an active poster for I think, about eight months straight. I'm sorry, FNaF and more animes became part of my life during the summer and of course, the first thing I do is freak myself out till I'm the most paranoid, most vulgar person on Earth (I get scared more than daily and also curse out almost every object and human I see). Then, I become drained of inspiration and just sit at my computer, staring at it for ages. I turned into a wreck of paranoia and writer's block. So, I can't say that I don't blame myself for staying inactive this long cuz I do, but I am ready to write again. Anything to do for my readers, who have probably abandoned me now ;) But here comes another fanfiction, straight out of the dark pits of the abyss. Called A Key to the Mind. Another inspiration story that birthed from me staring at the floor for two hours straight at 4:00 AM after having no sleep whatsoever. Yeah, I get those a lot. You'll see the essential plot soon enough. Once again, greetings from a long-dead sailor. Hope you jump aboard my ship soon enough. You'll see what wonders she contains. *salute* Farewell, Gemskies!**


	2. Memory's First Death

"I'm scared, Mama! I'm scared!" A kit's voice echoed through the shell of the empty building. A dark brown tabby she-cat sat in front of the kit, pawing at its pitiful droopy wet ears and managing to shush it. "Hush, Sung," she whispered quietly. "Hush…" She stared at the kit for a second before she burst into tears. "Oh, I can't let you go! I can't!"

"But you can." A deep, dark voice spoke from the other end of the building. Huge oval-shaped eyes burned in the darkness. Yellow, the same as the kit's. "Stay out of this, Matt," she growled. "You haven't made this situation even better." Matt smirked. "Oh, really, Deli?" he hissed back, his voice low and angry. "Who was the one that gave you a home in the first place?" Deli swung around to glare at the tom who sat in the shadow of the rubble. "You knew it was a home destined to crash and burn, Matt," she spat through clenched teeth, her eyes burning with a furious fire. "No cat can escape the wrath of Marked and her clan and you know that!"

Matt sighed and dipped his head low. It seemed like he was submitting and Deli was caught off guard. "I was just trying to keep our family alive," he said quietly, closing his eyes as he spoke. "How?!" the tabby she-cat exclaimed in outrage, stalking closer toward him all the while. "How are you trying to keep our family safe, Matt? How?!" Matt shook his head side to side, slowly, as if he knew something that Deli didn't. "You don't understand, dear sister," he replied. He opened his eyes now and stared at the tabby she-cat boldly.

He then stalked off, calling over his shoulder, "Well, it's your pick now, Deli." He then muttered under his breath, "The choice to leave your kit to suffer or let both of you suffer by Marked's rage."

Deli shook her head and hissed profane things about the tom then looked warily at her kit. But Sung didn't appear to have heard. She had fallen asleep on the stone floor. The she-cat sighed. She wished she could fall asleep so innocently and easily as the kit could. "Has she given her piteous swan's song?" the high-pitched, melodious sneer of Marked reached through the hollow shell of the building. "Yes, yes, she has, Marked," Matt's voice said far more quietly than Marked's. "Then, let the pyromaniacs approach."

Both Matt and Marked's voices seared through Deli's soul. Matt's betrayal. Marked's resort to dark ways of letting everyone know her mark, her death mark. Unable to take it all in at once, she curled around Sung and wrapped the kit up in a warm embrace. "Aurmm," she mumbled in her sleep pleasantly, kneading her claws into Deli's leg.

Over time, the flames spread closer and closer. Soft warmth coming from far away, then the hot burning feeling of fire in close vicinity. Smoke filled the building and Sung began to cough and choke. Deli just clenched closer and closer around the kit until she felt that the flames were hovering right beside her. Her pelt was burning, searing now. Pain stabbed at her tender skin like daggers and she could feel her fur burning off, as well as Sung's. She was wiggling, trying to stay away from the unpleasant warmth. But she was all too late. Burning, smoke, and fire filled her nostrils then an unbelievable shock, a zap even of pain that left her nerves scarred and scattered beyond repair. Fuzzy blackness filled her vision. Hollow, blackness of the void, that final death moment being separated into thousands of fragments, until altogether, they dispersed and both Deli and Sung were gone at the same time.

You spiral out of the memory, breathing hard, feeling an ominous dead static in the darkness and a death gong. That intense pain…fire….your first pain memory. Your first memory, in general. But you're ready to test out your power further. How far back can you go? You suddenly feel your paws shift beneath her. A dark wormhole awaits you. You're being sucked into another memory. "No," you howl, raking your claws along the floor of the stone cave you stay in. But it's too late. Your head is dragged into the wormhole and it closes up around you, leaving you hurtling, breathless into another memory.


	3. Memory's Unfinished

**A/N: Heyyyy, everyone, Spirit of the Brook here! Welcome back to AKTM (A Key To the Mind)! Can't wait to jump into this chapter and storyline! But first, we must answer and/or reply to le reviews! Let us go to le reviews!  
Titanclaw: Aww, thanks! Glad you think that the plot's phenomenal cuz as far as I'm concerned, I was a little iffy on this because it seemed at first just a place to put short one-shots in and I was going to connect it with some detached plot. But thanks for the high praise! Y'all are the reason I update ;D!**

 **Moonbeam14: Hey, thanks for reviewing! You know, I myself am having a few thoughts on how in the world one cat can contain all the memories in the world and how they would get into the cave without anybody searching for them or the cat itself missing them! Or is the Memory-Keeper even a cat? A lot of animals have paws, you know...*mysterious echoes* This was actually a great plot stirrer and a creativity booster. Thanks so much!  
**

 **On to le story!  
**

* * *

"I'll be back soon!" The tinkling, cheery voice of the pale cream she-cat left Beechfire breathless every time he heard it. She was so beautiful, so kind, so gentle, so…..innocent. He would just love to lock her up in a dark room where he could frame every bit of innocence she had into fragments…

He shook his head. No, he couldn't think like that. His father had been a psychopath, not him. But the dark room idea felt so appealing…maybe, he should just give it a test…it might give her a scare, but that wouldn't matter…he…just…needed…that…innocence! "Ugh," he erupted, tearing at the grass furiously with his long, curved claws. It did nothing but leave tufts of grass under the tips of his claws.

Beechfire sat down with a thump and stared moodily out into the distance. "My father killed twenty cats plus persuaded two to commit suicide for him," he reflected aloud. "Why am I so inclined to his sort of ideas then?!"

"Genetics." Beechfire heard a solitary, ice cold voice behind him. He turned around slowly, expecting to see some rogue glaring hatefully at him. For some reason, they all blamed him for his father's antics of destroying an entire sectioned off rogue Clan. Instead, what he saw shocked him and put his foul mood to a standstill. Standing behind him in the dead yellow grass was a ragged-furred tortoiseshell-and-white she-cat who looked like someone had taken her apart and reassembled her. What was worse was that she leaked puddles of blood from patches of skin that had been ripped apart to reveal organs. Angry bruises, claw-marks, and scars covered her entire disgusting body. She looked like some sick cat anatomy skeleton. "What are you?" Beechfire breathed in complete horror and disgust.

The she-cat looked like she could care less that she looked the way she looked. "Oh, I'm Mapleshade," she said casually, shrugging her bony shoulders, moving aside the pointy blades just enough so that he could see the back of her skull, dripping with dark blood and patchy with spots of the red sticky liquid that had already dried. Beechfire shuddered, but was distracted by her next words. "I'm your family's soul repairer, apparently. Ugh, if only StarClan didn't leave all us permanently killed Dark Forest warriors to the ones in need of mental therapy. If only." She gave an odd longing look combined with hatred toward the sky.

She then shook her head again, flicking a few chunks of bloody organ tissue off her skull in the process, probably brain tissue and said firmly, "No matter. I'm here to repair you. It's my job; even if StarClan tells me I'm unemployed and merely am a dirt-scrubbing, groveling slave to them. Now, the purpose of us repair-cats. Ah, it's a terrible story, but I'm sure Clan cats will enjoy it nonetheless." She scowled then began her story.

"A long time ago after the Great War of the Dark Forest, the Clans, and StarClan, a whole bunch of dead Dark Forest warriors had faded from existence, including me. Now, since Rock and Midnight were feeling merciful that season, they revived us with no memory, but as dismantled, mangled heaps of tissue. He had to put us back together one by one. Though I've heard my story _plenty_ of times from other clients, I feel no motivation to go back to my 'past' days. So, StarClan hired us to help the mentally unstable, unprepared, deprived, and all that other mental stuff. So, here I am now, ready to help you." She shrugged indifferently (Beechfire realized shrugging was going to be a big part of her body language) and smiled, revealing nasty, black, sharp teeth. He grimaced.

"Now, I know your father was a psychopath and a murderer," Mapleshade started up. "Yes," Beechfire said. She sighed and rolled her eyes, leaving a terrible picture of half-exposed nerves swirling in pools of blood seared into his mind. "Ah, your father was a tough nut," she growled. "I myself tried to teach him how to fight against his unstable wishes, but he was just too stubborn. Too unstable to be helped or help himself. He was left to professional help after that, I was told but I guess maybe even those trained in the expertise of mental help couldn't even calm the fool down." Her amber eyes quickly darted to Beechfire. "I really hope that didn't offend you," she added hurriedly.

The tom shook his head, quite curious now as to what she had experienced in her training of his father. "No, quite frankly, it didn't offend me at all," Beechfire meowed happily; he was pleased with himself for not thinking of any psychopathic thought when his father was mentioned.

"So, you are battling against your internal wishes now," she said carefully, probingly. "You should be easy to repair within a few sessions since you know the terrible deeds your father has committed and you are easily disgusted by his crimes. Only problem is, you have thoughts like his. Don't worry, it's in the bloodline. Psychopathy can come from being traumatized or scarred for life or genetics. Your father got it from being traumatized, watching his entire family murdered in the darkness. He started hating the darkness, hating himself, hating blood and then psychopathy affected him and he started to battle with hate and love of those things. Ultimately, he chose to love them and became a psychopath. You just got it the good ol' genetics way. Your sister didn't inherit it, though I think she's still struggling on speaking terms with her mate after he allowed your father to live as a prisoner of war." Mapleshade took a deep breath. "I should be able to help you now after unearthing this information from your brain. Now, let's-"

* * *

You jerk out of the memory just like the one before and gasp. The ending was so sudden, so unfinished. You wonder why this memory didn't complete like the one you experienced before. Did Beechfire just lose his train of thought? You sigh, exhausted from delving into these two memories and you fall asleep slumped against the walls of the cave, haunted by troubling dreams of the two memories combined. Sung had a mangled body like Mapleshade's and Deli was killing twenty cats, eyes lit up with insanity.

You wake up suddenly and stare at the stone ceiling for a while. Is this what the Memory-Keeper before you did all day? Explored memories and acquired them? You wonder how you possibly can hold all the memories in the world. Could you eventually die with them fresh in your mind? You smirk at the thought. You enjoy pain. Why should you be worried?

"Oh, I would be worried if I were you!" You jump as a brisk female voice suddenly answers your thoughts. You look across the cave and see another memory wormhole. You get dragged into the wormhole and you think, _Oh, no…._ before you fall into a familiar forest.


End file.
